Abu Mansur Maturidi

Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Maturidi as-Samarqandi (853–944) was a Hanafi jurist and theologian who is the eponym of the Maturidi school of kalam in Sunnism. He got his nisba from Māturīd, a district in Samarkand. His works include Tafsir al-Maturidi, a classic exegesis of the Qur'an, and Kitab al-Tawhid. His doctrinal school remains amongst the three main schools of theology alongside Ash'arism and Atharism. Al‑Maturidi was born at Maturid, a village or quarter in the neighbourhood of Samarkand. According to one biography he is known for being a descendant of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. Relatively little is known about the life of Maturidi, as the sources available "do not read as biographies, but rather as lists of works that have been enlarged upon by brief statements on his personage and a few words of praise." What is evident, however, is that the theologian lived the life of a pure scholar, as "nothing indicates that he held any public office, nor that he possessed more disciples, popularity, or association with the Sāmānid court of Bukhārā than anyone else." It is accepted, moreover, that Maturidi had two principal teachers, namely Abū Bakr al-Jūzjānī and Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. al-ʿAbbās al-ʿIyāḍī (d. ca. 874–892), both of whom played significant roles in the shaping of Maturidi's theological views. Maturidi is said to have lived the life of an ascetic (zāhid), and various sources attribute numerous miracles (karāmāt) to him. Although he is not usually considered a mystic, it is nevertheless very possible that Maturidi had some interaction with the Sufis of his area, as "Hanafite theology in the region could not always be sharply separated from mystical tendencies," and many of the most important Hanafi jurists of the area were also Sufi mystics.